Eastsound CD-5 Did I Make A Mistake When I Tried this Out?

[philodox]

Hershon2000 - We already went over this ad nauseam in the other thread. If you are using the digital or analog outputs from the E5 into your 5.1 reciever the sound is being processed and you are not really hearing the E5. If you like 5.1, get a good DVD player or something and stop spreading misinformation on this CD player.

kavu - A mensa modded Art DIO DAC costs more than an Eastsound CD-E5 does it not? I should hope that, as a DAC, it would be superior. Did you try the E5 as a transport with it against whatever else you have? I am using mine with a Lavry Black DA10 currently and getting good results.

 

[JaGWiRE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by philodox Hershon2000 - We already went over this ad nauseam in the other thread. If you are using the digital or analog outputs from the E5 into your 5.1 reciever the sound is being processed and you are not really hearing the E5. If you like 5.1, get a good DVD player or something and stop spreading misinformation on this CD player. kavu - A mensa modded Art DIO DAC costs more than an Eastsound CD-E5 does it not? I should hope that, as a DAC, it would be superior. Did you try the E5 as a transport with it against whatever else you have? I am using mine with a Lavry Black DA10 currently and getting good results.

I didn't know you had one of these

. Hows the transport on it? A bit of an expensive transport, eh? Hehe,

. I for some reason am interested in SA-CD/DVD-A and want to get a player for that, I was going to get a denon 2200, but now grandenigma has me intereestd in his player he put up for sale. Probably get a dac for RBCDS, and buy a few lots of SA-CDS on canuckaudiomart (everybody seems to be selling packages lately, people are dumping these things away on the truckloads, better for me though I guess

.)

 

[philodox]

Cool, good luck with the SACD. I am still unconvinced that it is worth it. I have yet to hear a SACD or DVD-A player that sounds better than a high end CD player. That and the lack of music available on the formats has kept me away from it.

I got the CD-E5 Signature Edition shortly after the Toronto meet. It is a great transport, and a fine sounding CD player when output directly to an amp.

 

[JaGWiRE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by philodox Cool, good luck with the SACD. I am still unconvinced that it is worth it. I have yet to hear a SACD or DVD-A player that sounds better than a high end CD player. That and the lack of music available on the formats has kept me away from it. I got the CD-E5 Signature Edition shortly after the Toronto meet. It is a great transport, and a fine sounding CD player when output directly to an amp.

So are you using it on a regular basis as a transport, or direct to an amp?

 

[philodox]

Well, I borrowed one of Renato's [looser101] Sol Headphone amplifiers [a simple MOSFET circuit] and am feeding that from the RCA outs of the Eastsound for my Grado's right now. With my K340's I use either the Eastsound or the Squeezebox as a transport to the Lavry and drive them out of the balanced outputs.

 

[JaGWiRE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by philodox Well, I borrowed one of Renato's [looser101] Sol Headphone amplifiers [a simple MOSFET circuit] and am feeding that from the RCA outs of the Eastsound for my Grado's right now. With my K340's I use either the Eastsound or the Squeezebox as a transport to the Lavry and drive them out of the balanced outputs.

You have grados? And that's what I thought. I was pretty sure you didn't have a real amp and were using the lavrys outputs.

 

[Hershon2000]

For the millionth time, connecting a CD player using an optic or coaxal digital cable does not reprocess sound. If you say then it uses your receivers DAC, fine. If I play this on 5 channel all natural sound the only thing being reprocessed is my center speaker which is becomes essentially a mono channel combining the left and right channels. In regards to the left and right channels, none of them have been altered, they are just coming out equally in the back 2 speakers as well as the front. I fail to see how this is spreading misinformation. Just cause the Eastsound CD-5 sounded like a total loser in my book on my system does not mean I spreading misinformation.


Quote:

Originally Posted by philodox Hershon2000 - We already went over this ad nauseam in the other thread. If you are using the digital or analog outputs from the E5 into your 5.1 reciever the sound is being processed and you are not really hearing the E5. If you like 5.1, get a good DVD player or something and stop spreading misinformation on this CD player. kavu - A mensa modded Art DIO DAC costs more than an Eastsound CD-E5 does it not? I should hope that, as a DAC, it would be superior. Did you try the E5 as a transport with it against whatever else you have? I am using mine with a Lavry Black DA10 currently and getting good results.

 

[philodox]

"What misinformation?"

Hershon2000 - It must be something with the way that you keep presenting your impressions and questions. I can just see how someone would take your comments as a reason not to buy the Eastsound, which would be wrong. You have not heard the CD-E5 how it was intended and with the way you use your system it doesn't seem that you will be using it this way ever. If you haven't yet sold it, do so... and buy something that actually fits your needs.

 

[JaGWiRE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by philodox "What misinformation?" Hershon2000 - It must be something with the way that you keep presenting your impressions and questions. I can just see how someone would take your comments as a reason not to buy the Eastsound, which would be wrong. You have not heard the CD-E5 how it was intended and with the way you use your system it doesn't seem that you will be using it this way ever. If you haven't yet sold it, do so... and buy something that actually fits your needs.

YUP, I honestly don't understand what this guy doesn't get. And I might be wrong, but most people use 5.1 setups in their home theater systems for movies, I am not so sure about music. The idea of surround sound 5.1 is that you are listening to something that has been digitally mastered so that you get neat effects, i.e. hearing somebody in a movie coming up from the rear in your rear speakers, and being able to tell where different sounds are coming from. When your taking 2 channel music, your reciever is just processing them into your 5 speakers, but the music itself is still coming from a stereo cd, meaning there is no real mastering going on as to where certain sounds should be outputted (i.e. rear, center or left/right.)

Oh, and BTW, I don't understand DSPS or their algorithims, I could be wrong about the way it changes the sound to speakers. If your into 5.1, you should probably spend all your money in the reciever.

 

[studeb]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hershon2000 For the millionth time, connecting a CD player using an optic or coaxal digital cable does not reprocess sound. If you say then it uses your receivers DAC, fine. If I play this on 5 channel all natural sound the only thing being reprocessed is my center speaker which is becomes essentially a mono channel combining the left and right channels. In regards to the left and right channels, none of them have been altered, they are just coming out equally in the back 2 speakers as well as the front. I fail to see how this is spreading misinformation. Just cause the Eastsound CD-5 sounded like a total loser in my book on my system does not mean I spreading misinformation.

Ed,

i really do not care about the Eastsound CD-5 being bad or good but, i do not think you understand just what your Magnificient Denon is doing. When you input the digital signal from your Pioneer CD player the Denon does the following:

upsample to 96kHz
process to 6.1 "optimizing for superior sound" (Denon's ad copy) using their 32 bit DSP chip
output this to the 24/96 D/A chip
output this to the amps and speakers. The signals fed to the front and rear are NOT THE SAME

When you input the analog signal from the Eastsound your Magnificient Denon does the following:

convert anlaog to digital with the onboard 16/44.1 A/D converter
upsample to 96kHz
process to 6.1 "optimizing for superior sound" (Denon's ad copy) using their 32 bit DSP chip
output this to the 24/96 D/A chip
output this to the amps and speakers. The signals fed to the front and rear are NOT THE SAME

The difference is in the A/D conversion your Denon is doing. As this A/D chip is probably not as good as the chips used to do the A/D conversion in the studio (likely 24/96, this is likely why the Eastsound does not sound as good as the digital direct from the Pioneer.

If you think that your Denon is simply splitting the signals F/R and mixing the center to summed mono with no other DSP you are very mistaken.

Philodox - this is a lost cause

 

[utep10]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hershon2000 Thanks for the info Very good explanation I don't know if this changes anything but I tried by an analog & digital connection with the Eastsound CD-5 & the Ah Njoe 4000 & they both sounded better connected by analog toi my Denon 3801 A/V receiver but the Pioneer connected digitally to this sounded better then either one connected by analog.

Hershon2000,

I'm sorry if I missed this somewhere but, when you connected the CD-5 and A N 4000 with their analog outputs to your Denon system, did you listen with your Denon in 2 speaker mode or 5.1 ?? I would think that 2 speaker mode would have a mode to not re-digitize the signal.

 

[studeb]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hershon2000 Thanks for the info. How is yours connected? I'm asking because this was the first time I have ever had a major disconnect to an item everyone is raving about & I'm now wondering if it is because of the upsampler which I think it has too as its obvious now it had nothing to do with volume control. It wasn't that it sounded so bad but it didn't sound like I was hoping for & it had had plenty of break in time. I had it connected directly to my Denon 3801 A/V Receiver. I also tried out & hopefully will sell soon an Ah Njoe Tjoeb Super 4000 tube CD player with upsampler. This sounded pretty good & not much different to me then the Eastsound CD-5 & as they both have upsamplers I think, maybe that's what I wasn't wild about audio wise. For my ears on my connection, neither was in the ballpark of my Pioneer Elite PD-59 on my system & I'm beginning to think that the combo of its Leggo Link and stable mechanical platter is what gives the Pioneer the sound I like.

Not to get pedantic but:

People are raving about the eastsound in a two channel system. You are not using a two channel system. i can' t remember if you voiced a preference using a two channel system, but you did prefer the eastsound analog output to the pioneer analog output, and the reverse preference for the digital outputs.

The Pioneer has the Legato Link digital filter, which interpolate and adds high frequencies to the analog output, not to the digital output.

 

[Hershon2000]

I didn't put this thread on to beat a dead horse & criticize the Eastsound CD-5 again. I truly thought that I had made a mistake when I tried it out as it didn't occur to me that it might have a volume control that was controlled by the remote. It turned out it didn't, end of story for me. I brought this up because I just tried out another CD player & the guy who let me try it out said to make sure the volume as set at maximum. When I initially used it, I forgot all about it, I later remembered & found the volume control on the remote & it did sound better but wasn't what I was looking for. I thought the same thing might have occurred to the CD-5 & maybe I listened to it (by my standards) wrong. I was informed here I listened to it correctly. Any other comments I made were in response to replies only, as threads tend to digress a bit. I'm glad if people who have the CD-5 are happy. It just wasn't for me.

 

[Hershon2000]

Oh, I listened to the CD-5 both in 2 channel mode & 5 channel mode using both analog & digital connections. Neither of these 4 permentations produced the sound I like when listening to the Pioneer PD-59 by optic cable to my Denon 3801 A/V Receiver in the all channel mode. What I noticed was that the CD-5 spread the sound which is good but all it did was thin it out as well if that makes sense & the PD-59 has a sweeter, thicker, natural sound that is not spread out.

 

[Hershon2000]

When you connect a CD player to the Denon 3801 if you have it on the prologic setting it will reprocess 2 channel sound to 5 channel which I do not like or listen to. The All Channel Stereo setting on the Denon has the same left and right feeds to the front & back speaker. The only feed that is reprocessed is the center channel which combines the left & right equally, thus making it in fact a mono signal. To restate All Channel Stereo & ProLogic are 2 different settings on the Denon Receivers. ProLogic reprocessed each channel & all channel produced the same output for the front & rear speakers for each left & right signal & makes the center speaker a combination of the left & right channel.